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887 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2018

Intuitionistic fuzzy logit model of discrete choice

Manish Aggarwal, Madasu Hanmandlu, Mark T. Keane, and Kanad K. Biswas

IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence

In the real-world multicriteria decision making, the evaluations of the various criteria are often vague (or not crisp). The existing choice models are difficult to apply in such situations. In this paper, we introduce an intuitionistic fuzzy variant of the multinomial logit model, which helps us to suggest a decision-maker's likely choices with vague evaluations. The applicability of the proposed model is shown through a real multicriteria decision-making application.

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Journal Articles | 2018

All aboard the Metro rail? LTMRHL's campaign for stakeholder support

Asha Kaul and Vidhi Chaudhri

Asian Case Research Journal

On March 6, 2015 the Brand Ambassador campaign by L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad Ltd. (LTMRHL) had taken place for a little over two years. Launched in 2013 to bring about awareness and dispel negativity about the Metro Rail project, this campaign had succeeded in securing visibility and garnering support. The corporate communication team was now debating the feasibility of the ongoing campaign and exploring various options. Based on the current review, a decision had to be taken to continue or abandon the campaign post commercial operations scheduled in July 2017.

The campaign was launched in Hyderabad on January 8, 2013 through a press conference. Designed with the purpose of selecting brand ambassadors for the Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) project, it targeted the ‘common man’ rather than a celebrity. The choice of a common man was deliberate as the project required support from stakeholders who had become hostile due to varied political and economic reasons. Reaching out to and engaging with these stakeholders in an effort to garner support were the focal points of the campaign. The launch generated excitement and in the first week itself, there was a surge to register for the campaign. However, the intensity staggered post the felicitation ceremony on November 23, 2013. Queries related to the success and sustainability of the campaign were raised by multiple stakeholders.

A two-year review in 2015 revealed that although many of the initial problems had been overcome, and negativity considerably reduced, the campaign had only achieved partial success. Will the current strategy be the gateway to success once commercial operations began, mulled Mr. Sanjay Kapoor, General Manager & Head of Corporate Communications, PR & Advertising Business, LTMRHL.

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Journal Articles | 2018

When the big one came: A natural experiment on demand shock and market structure in India's Influenza Vaccine markets

Arzi Adbi, Chirantan Chatterjee, Matej Drev, and Anant Mishra

Production and Operations Management

This study examines the relationship between exogenous demand shock and market structure in India's influenza vaccine markets. Using a novel dataset of detailed purchasing information for vaccines in India, and exploiting the 2009–10 global H1N1 pandemic as an exogenous demand shock, we provide evidence of heterogeneous responses to the shock by domestic and multinational vaccine manufacturers in the influenza vaccine market relative to our control group of all other vaccine markets. We find that such a shock results in a reversal of the market structure for influenza vaccines in India, with a decline in the market share of multinational vaccine manufacturers and significant gains in the market share of domestic vaccine manufacturers. This reversal of the market structure is driven by increased efforts at new product introduction among domestic vaccine manufacturers, the effects of which persist even after the pandemic has ended. Our results remain robust to the use of alternative controls, synthetic control method, coarsened exact matching method, and other relevant estimation methodologies. These results provide new evidence on the role of a pandemic-induced demand shock in the context of an emerging economy by creating differential incentives for domestic and multinational vaccine manufacturers to bring new products to market. We also conduct additional analysis to explore the impact of targeted policy instruments on the new product introduction efforts of domestic vaccine manufacturers. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings and offer insights into the role of policy on pandemic preparedness in emerging markets facing adverse welfare effects from pandemics.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Stakeholder orientation and market impact: Evidence from India

Arzi Adbi, Ajay Bhaskarabhatla, and Chirantan Chatterjee

Journal of Business Ethics

This study integrates insights from stakeholder theory and the literature on competitive dynamics and incumbent responses to entry. While research in economics and strategy has examined how market incumbents respond to new entrants, little is known about the heterogeneity in these responses to the entry of a stakeholder-oriented firm; our study addresses this research gap. Findings from a novel, longitudinal dataset of 206 granularly defined pharmaceutical markets in India suggest that stakeholder-oriented firm entry in these markets is associated with an impact on prices and product differentiation with heterogeneous responses from high-end and low-end incumbents. Specifically, entry by a stakeholder-oriented firm results in a reduction in prices and dosage sizes from high-end incumbents, whereas low-end incumbents respond in the opposite direction.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker proximity measure for solving bilevel optimization problems

Ankur Sarin, Tharo Soun, and Kalyanmoy Deb

Swarm and Evolutionary Computation

A common technique to solve bilevel optimization problems is by reducing the problem to a single level and then solving it as a standard optimization problem. A number of single level reduction formulations exist, but one of the most common ways is to replace the lower level optimization problem with its Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions. Such a reduction strategy has been widely used in the classical optimization as well as the evolutionary computation literature. However, KKT conditions contain a set of non-linear equality constraints that are often found hard to satisfy. In this paper, we discuss a single level reduction of a bilevel problem using recently proposed relaxed KKT conditions. The conditions are relaxed; therefore, approximate, but the error in terms of distance from the true lower level KKT point is bounded. There is a proximity measure associated to the new KKT conditions, which gives an idea of the KKT error and distance from the optimum. We utilize this reduction method within an evolutionary algorithm to solve bilevel optimization problems. The proposed algorithm is compared against a number of recently proposed approaches. The idea is found to lead to significant computational savings, especially, in the lower level function evaluations. The idea is promising and might be useful for further developments on bilevel optimization both in the domain of classical as well as evolutionary optimization research.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Convex preference cone-based approach for many objective optimization problems

Ankur Sarin, Pekka Malo, and Markku Kallio

Computers and operations Research

Many objective optimization problems have turned out to be a considerable challenge for evolutionary algorithms due to the difficulty of finding and visualizing high-dimensional Pareto frontiers. Fortunately, however, the task can be simplified whenever an interaction with a human decision maker is possible. Instead of finding the entire Pareto frontier, the evolutionary search can be guided to the parts of the space that are most relevant for the decision maker. In this paper, we propose an interactive method for solving many objective optimization problems. Drawing on the recent developments in multiple criteria decision making, we introduce an effective strategy for leveraging polyhedral preference cones within an evolutionary algorithm. The approach is mathematically motivated and is applicable to situations, where the user’s preferences can be assumed to follow an unknown quasi-concave and increasing utility function. In addition to considering the preference cones as a tool for eliminating non-preferred solution candidates, we also present how the the cones can be leveraged in approximating the directions of steepest ascent to guide the subsequent search done by the evolutionary algorithm through a proposed merit function. To evaluate the performance of the algorithm, we consider well known test problems as well as a practical facility location problem.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Implementing the Right to Education: Creation of "knowdents"

Ankur Sarin and Ashish Ranjan

NORRAG Special Issue, January

Under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, 2009 (RTE Act), the Indian State accepted an obligation to make schooling accessible and compulsory for children between the ages of 6-14 years. In a rather controversial provision (Section 12(1)(c)), the act also mandated that unaided private schools admit at least 25 per cent of their children at the entry level from sections of society deemed to be economically weak and disadvantaged, at no cost to the students. In turn, the State promised to reimburse schools an amount equal to either the per child expense incurred by the government or the school fee, whichever is lower. The reimbursement rule implied a financial burden (in terms of lost revenues) for schools whose per child expenditure exceeded what the government claimed to spend in its schools, but more significantly, threatened the underlying logic of private enterprise, to select ‘customers’ based not only on the customer’s ability to pay but also of the school’s choice (Sarin & Gupta, 2013). Contested in the country’s highest court, the mandate was deemed to be constitutional and aligned with the obligations that the private providers had accepted when they were allowed to set up their schools.

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Journal Articles | 2018

Implementation of Section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act

Ankur Sarin, Ambrish Dongre, Praveen Khanghta, Nishank Varshney, Akriti Gaur, and Ajey Sengai

Economic and political Weekly

Section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act mandates non-minority private unaided schools to keep aside at least 25% of their entry-level seats for children belonging to disadvantaged sections to create a more integrated and inclusive schooling system. But its implementation experience has been far from satisfactory. More than half of the states and union territories have not implemented this provision (as of March 2016). Further, experiences of the states that implement this provision display considerable gaps. The Implementation of Section 12(1)(c) has also faced a plethora of litigations. The issues are discussed in-depth and recommendations for improving implementation have been provided.

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Journal Articles | 2018

How can Indian power plants cost-effectively meet the new sulfur emission standards? Policy evaluation using marginal abatement cost-curves

Anish Sugathan, Ritesh Bhangale, Vishal Kansal, and Unmil Hulke

Energy Policy

The first-ever SO2 emission concentration standards for Indian coal-power plants were notified on December 7, 2015. In light of the new stringent standards, this paper conducts a techno-economic policy evaluation of SO2 abatement options by building a system-wide marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) for India. An abatement cost model is developed, to estimate retrofit costs for three end-of-process (EOP) SO2 abatement technologies. A system-wide SO2 MACC is derived based on cost optimal allocation of EOP abatement technology to each boiler. Compliance with the new stricter emission standards is evaluated at 75% pollution reduction (≈ 4600 kt-SO2 reductions per year). Compliance with the new standard corresponds to a marginal abatement cost of INR 23,500 per ton of SO2 (≈USD 368.50 per ton of SO2) and total system-wide abatement cost of INR 75 billion (≈USD 1.2 billion) per year. Reduction in pollution is estimated to save 46,000 lives per year at the cost of about INR 1.63 million per life per year. Sensitivity analysis of the MAC curve shows that plant capacity utilization has the most significant impact on total lifetime compliance costs followed by equipment fixed cost, sorbent cost, and water cost in that order.

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Journal Articles | 2018

The effect of relationship and transactional characteristics on customer retention in emerging online markets

Anand K.Jaiswal, Rakesh Niraj, Chang Hee Park, and Manoj K.Agarwal

Journal of Business Research

Trust is important for maintaining customer relationships in online retailing, as customers have only a virtual connection with sellers. This is especially true in online markets of emerging economies, given their lack of trust-enhancing infrastructure and well-functioning regulatory institutions. We investigate the effect of trust and a set of other relationship and transactional characteristics—mode of customer acquisition, length of relationship, service communication, product return activity, and type of products purchased—on retention in the context of emerging online markets. We obtain data from an online retailer in India that include both survey and transaction information. Using a latent attrition model, we find that trust positively affects customer retention behavior. We also find that relationship length, service communication, product return experience, and the type of products purchased affect retention. Furthermore, we conduct split-sample analysis and suggest some managerial actions on spending efforts to enhance retention.

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IIMA