Home Menu
icon-menu-close.svg

Faculty & Research

Faculty & Research

Research Productive

Show result

Clear
Search Query :
Area :
Search Query :
703 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2018

Decision aiding model with entropy-based subjective utility. Information Sciences

Manish Aggarwal

Information Sciences

An entropy-based method is presented to model a decision-maker’s (DM’s) subjective utility for a criterion value. The proposed method considers distribution of all the values that the criterion takes for the given set of alternatives. Based on the utility so modeled, and and the DM’s attitudinal character, a multi criteria decision aiding (MCDA) approach is developed to find the best alternative. The proposed method and the approach are applied in a real car selection case-study.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

Constitution, Supreme Court and Regulation of Coal Sector in India

M P Ram Mohan and Shashikant Yadav

NUJS Law Review

The paper maps four decades of coal sector litigation before the Supreme Court of India and draws a narrative on the constitutional contestation and the legal position as it stands today. Coal is one of the most important minerals from an economic perspective, accounting for over sixty percent of India’s energy requirement. The Constitution of India empowers both the Centre and states with legislative powers relating to regulation and control over mines and minerals, including coal. The coal sector has witnessed highly contested and protracted litigation with respect to law-making powers between the Centre and state governments, and this has impacted business and society in many ways. Through a mapping of judicial decisions of Supreme Court, the contested nature of governance of Indian coal sector is detailed in the paper. The Court has consistently maintained a greater responsibility of regulating mines and mineral development on the Union government. However, advocating sustainable use of coal resources, the Court emphasised that the regulatory power vested with Centre and states must have its basis on public interest and coal must be treated as a material resource of the community.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

Which interpretational route will the Supreme Court of India follow when faced with the contentious civil liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010

M P Ram Mohan

Statute Law Review

The Civil Nuclear Liability for Damages Act of India enacted in 2010 has been a matter of concern to international suppliers and vendors. This is due to the perceived deviation of the law from the principle of legal channelling of liability (to the operator) which is at the heart of international nuclear liability jurisprudence. Specifically, this notion arises from allowing recourse to suppliers under outside of the circumstances mentioned in the Annex of the Convention for Complementary Compensation. Sections 17 and 46 which embody this notion are subject to different interpretations, some of them implying the compliance of the Indian regime with the international nuclear liability regime and many others equally suggest otherwise. In 2015, Government of India through a detailed Frequently Answered Questions clarified the nature and meaning of these sections. However, interestingly, there are two cases pending before Supreme Court of India contesting the constitutionality of the legislation in which these two specific provisions are also disputed. The article attempts to explain and resolve the ambiguity through a study of Supreme Court’s approach to statutory interpretation. I undertake an analysis of the reasoning given under the 2015 FAQ in the light of the disputed Sections 17 and 46 and bring out a probable prediction of Court’s interpretation of the Sections of the Act.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

Conceptualization to amendment: Kakinada as a smart city

Lavanya Chintagunta, Priyanshu Raj, and Sundaravalli Narayanaswami

Journal of Public Affairs

Urbanization is globally rampant; in developing countries such as India, it is driven in a phenomenal pace by an aspiring, young society and ambitious state policies to achieve a competitive space in global economy. “Smart cities” is a new-age term coined specifically to control, monitor, measure, and evaluate our urban growth, in a way to understand how conducive are our cities for running businesses. Global borders are diminishing, and world-wide economies compete on multiple dimensions in a level playing field to participate and prosper in global markets. Cities are centers of economic activities, and the economic growth of a country largely depends on safe and supportive cities. Therefore, the need for smart cities is not difficult to establish. The more difficult questions are, “do we really know what a smart city is?” or “what are the elements that go into making an existing city smart?” Such questions are pertinent and timely. This paper attempts to answer these questions in a descriptive manner based on theoretical and empirical observations. We adopt an integrative approach of design conceptualization, policy building, and framework development, substantiated using an Indian city, namely, Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh State as an illustrative case.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

A two-part dynamic pricing policy for household electricity consumption scheduling with minimized expenditure

Krishnendranath Mitra and Goutam Dutta

International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems

In this paper we propose an optimization model for scheduling electrical appliances for an individual household. Here, customers are offered dynamic prices which are a function of that household’s planned consumption and forecasted grid load. We consider a grid connected system with a battery and an in-house renewable energy generator in the proposed scheduling model. This model minimizes the customer’s electricity bill subject to different constraints. We analyze our model with various pricing policies, price ranges and appliance operation windows. We find that the expenditure of the consumer decreases considerably in our model when shifting from flat prices to dynamic prices based on the forecasted grid load and the consumer’s individual planned consumption. Considerable expenditure reduction and individual load flattening is achieved with the use of a battery and an in-house renewable energy generator. Also, larger the price range, higher is the load flattening and lower is the expenditure. We show that our proposed pricing policy is beneficial to both consumers and suppliers.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

A statistical model for helices with applications

Kanti V. Mardia, Karthik Sriram, and Charlotte M. Deane

Biometrics

Motivated by a cutting edge problem related to the shape of α-helices in proteins, we formulate a parametric statistical model, which incorporates the cylindrical nature of the helix. Our focus is to detect a “kink,” which is a drastic change in the axial direction of the helix. We propose a statistical model for the straight α-helix and derive the maximum likelihood estimation procedure. The cylinder is an accepted geometric model for α-helices, but our statistical formulation, for the first time, quantifies the uncertainty in atom positions around the cylinder. We propose a change point technique “Kink-Detector” to detect a kink location along the helix. Unlike classical change point problems, the change in direction of a helix depends on a simultaneous shift of multiple data points rather than a single data point, and is less straightforward. Our biological building block is crowdsourced data on straight and kinked helices; which has set a gold standard. We use this data to identify salient features to construct Kink-detector, test its performance and gain some insights. We find the performance of Kink-detector comparable to its computational competitor called “Kink-Finder.” We highlight that identification of kinks by visual assessment can have limitations and Kink-detector may help in such cases. Further, an analysis of crowdsourced curved α-helices finds that Kink-detector is also effective in detecting moderate changes in axial directions.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

Worth the wait? How restaurant waiting time influences customer Behaviour and revenue

Jelle De Vries, Debjit Roy, and Rene De Koster

Journal of Operations management

In many service industries, customers have to wait for service. When customers have a choice, this waiting may influence their service experience, sojourn time, and ultimately spending, reneging, and return behavior. Not much is known however, about the system-wide impact of waiting on customer behavior and resulting revenue. In this paper, we empirically investigate this by analyzing data obtained from 94,404 customers visiting a popular Indian restaurant during a 12 month period. The results show that a longer waiting time relates to reneging behavior, a longer time until a customer returns, and a shorter dining duration. To find out the impact of the consequences of waiting time, we use the empirical findings and data collected in a simulation experiment. This experiment shows that, without waiting, the total revenue generated by the restaurant would increase by nearly 15% compared to the current situation. Stimulating customers to reserve could enable restaurants to reap part of this benefit. Furthermore, the results of simulation experiments suggest that, within the boundaries of the current capacity, revenue could be increased by a maximum of 7.5% if more flexible rules were used to allocate customers to tables. Alternatively, by increasing the existing seating capacity by 20%, revenue could be boosted by 7.7% without the need to attract additional customers. Our findings extend the knowledge on the consequences of customer waiting, and enable service providers to better understand the financial and operational impact of waiting-related decisions in service settings.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

Internet channel cannibalization and its influence on salesperson performance outcomes in an emerging economy context

Dheeraj Sharma, S.K. Pandey, Rajesh Chandwani, Peeyush Pandey, and Rojers Joseph

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

Businesses increasingly use internet channels to increase their market penetration. However, empirical studies have shown that salespeople perceive Internet channels to be cannibalistic, effecting other sales—an effect that past researchers have termed as salesperson perceived cannibalization (SPC). None of these studies has examined this phenomenon in an emerging economies context, which has distinct dimensions. In this paper, we explore the influence of SPC on insurance sales agents in an emerging economy context through the lens of Structuration theory. We examine the SPC's impact on job performance and client professionalism. We further examine the moderating role of relational capital and perception of fairness on the influence of SPC on job performance and client professionalism.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

Navigating embeddedness: Experiences of Indian IT suppliers and employees in the Netherlands

Muneeb Ul Lateef Banday, Ernesto Noronha, and Premilla D'Cruz

Journal of Business Ethics

In this article, we shift the usual analytical attention of the GPN framework from lead firms to suppliers in the network and from production to IT services. Our focus is on how Indian IT suppliers embed in the Netherlands along the threefold characterization of societal, territorial and network embeddedness. We argue that Indian IT suppliers attempt to display societal embeddedness when they move to The Netherlands. Our findings reveal that the endeavour by Indian IT suppliers to territorially dis-embed from the Dutch context is reinforced by their peripheral position in the network and their ability to offshore work in a bid to contain costs, in addition to the influence of client domination. Therefore, territorial embeddedness is considered to be secondary to societal embeddedness which is intertwined with client interest while neglecting the interest of other network members. Nonetheless, the inter-firm relationship is complex, given the tension between societal, territorial and network embeddedness. While preferring Indian IT suppliers because of their low pricing, Dutch clients also insist on compliance with the institutional context of the Netherlands especially when it comes to Dutch employees. This results in hybridization which means that Indian IT suppliers find ways to adhere to the institutional framework for Dutch nationals while simultaneously insulating Indian employees from the same. Consequently, a highly unfair segmented internal labour market develops, with Dutch nationals being treated more favourably as compared to Indian nationals. Nonetheless, to address these violations, Indian employees prefer individual strategies of resilience and rework rather than a collectivization response.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2018

'Doing Dignity Work': Indian security guards interface with precariousness

Ernesto Noronha, Saikat Chakraborty, and Premilla D'Cruz

Journal of Business Ethics

Increasing global competition has intensified the use of informal sector workforce worldwide. This phenomenon is true with regard to India, where 92% of the workers hold precarious jobs. Our study examines the dynamics of workplace dignity in the context of Indian security guards deployed as contract labour by private suppliers, recognising that security guards’ jobs were marked by easy access, low status, disrespect and precariousness. The experiences of guards serving bank ATMs were compared with those working in large reputed organisations. The former reported loss of dignity though their inherent self-worth remained partially intact, whereas the latter reclaimed dignity despite the precarious working conditions and the absence of unions. Guards from large reputed organisations evolved strategies by which they took advantage of the client’s vulnerabilities, developed ‘thick’ relationships at work and immersed themselves in 'doing dignity work' to ensure that they are not disposable. ‘Doing dignity work’ was a visible device which involved actions that met or went beyond the norms laid down by the client and was used by security guards to limit the extent of their precariousness. Since the opportunity to reclaim dignity was facilitated by large reputed clients’ adherence to legal regulations, we see implications of the study for the moral economy.

Go to link
Read More
IIMA