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3588 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2023

Predicting the outbreak of epidemics using a network-based approach

Saikat Das, Indranil Bose, and Uttam Kumar Sarkar

European Journal of Operational Research

The spread of epidemics is a common societal problem across the world. Can operational research be used to predict such outbreaks? While equation-based approaches are used to model the trajectory of epidemics, can a network-based approach also be used? This paper presents an innovative application of epidemic modelling through the design of both approaches and compares between the two. The network-based approach proposed in this paper allows implementing heterogeneity at the level of individuals and incorporates flexibility in the variety of situations the model can be applied to. In contrast to the equation-based approach, the network-based approach can address the role of individual differences, network properties, and patterns of social contacts responsible for the spread of epidemics but are much more complex to implement. In this paper, we simulated the spread of infection at the beginning of Covid-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) using both approaches. The results are showcased using empirical data for eight countries. Sophisticated measures, including partial curve mapping, are used to compare the simulated results with the actual number of infections. We find that the plots generated by the network-based approach match the empirical data better than the equation-based approach. While both approaches can be used to predict the spread of infections, we conclusively show that the proposed network-based approach is better suited with its ability to model the spread of epidemics at the level of an individual. Hence, this can be a model of choice for epidemiologists who are interested to model the spread of an epidemic.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Movies, stigma and choice: Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry

Mayank Aggarwal, Anindya S. Chakrabarti, and Chirantan Chatterjee

Health Economics

Do movies reduce stigma, increasing healthcare product choices offered by firms? We provide causal evidence on this question in the context of Indian pharmaceutical markets. For unpacking these effects, we use an exogenous shock to the market due to the release of a Bollywood blockbuster movie - My Name is Khan (MNIK) where the protagonist, superstar Shahrukh Khan, suffers from Asperger's Syndrome (AS). Using a difference-in-differences design, we find a positive and statistically significant effect of MNIK (between 14% and 22% increase in variety sold and prescribed) on product differentiation and choices in the market for antipsychotic medicines used to clinically treat AS. Results are consistent using alternative controls, a placebo treatment-based test and with a variety of other robustness checks. Our findings document likely for the first-time, supply side responses to edutainment and suggests potential associated welfare effects in healthcare markets characterized by sticky demand. Implications for global health and public policy given worldwide concerns around a mental wellness epidemic with Covid-19 are discussed.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Beyond the technology-centric and citizen-centric binary: Ontological politics of organizing in translation of the smart city discourse in India

Harsh Mittal, George Kandathil, and Navdeep Mathur

Organization

Smart city (SC) experts in India often center-stage citizens as an alternative to a technology-led transformation. A substantial body of literature on smart cities sustains this resultant binary between techno-centrism and citizen-centrism. Mobilizing ANT sensibilities, we generate an ethnographic narrative on how the smart city discourse has translated into everyday processes of city administration and urban governance in India. Our account unmutes more-and-other-than-human actants—event-stage, glossy publications, ceremonial awards, conference producers, and decision-makers—in the translation of SC discourse, with following effects: the uncertainties in the translation process are foregrounded which potentially destabilize center-staged actor identities; and the work of heterogeneous actants in articulating the citizen as the center of their efforts is revealed, thereby de-naturalizing the binarized reality. Furthermore, when unmuted, more-and-other-than-humans spell out their ongoing collaborations and negotiations and generate a nuanced reading of the clashes and accommodations made in the process of translating SC discourse in everyday settings of city administrations. These effects lead us to emphasize the translation of SC discourse as an uncertain socio-material process proceeding through episodic clashes and tentative accommodations. They also invite a conceptual expansion of translation as constitutive of the ontological politics of organizing, which insists on attending to ongoing collaborations and negotiations among more-and-other-than-humans that compose organizational realities. Thus, we address critical organization and management studies’ concerns regarding ANT’s alignment with its objectives by locating politics in the performance of, and interference into, the multiple realities that are being enacted through practices that assemble experts, decision-makers and non-humans.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Debunking fake ad claims: The moderating role of gender

Somak Banerjee, Joseph F. Rocereto, Hyokjin Kwak, and Arpita Pandey

International Journal of Advertising

Countering ads with fake claims represent a significant challenge for marketers and policymakers. We show how gender can help better target debunking efforts toward fake ads. First, we find that females (vs. males) show higher sensitivity to debunking efforts toward fake ads, leading to less favorable attitudes toward the brand and, consequently, lower purchase intentions. We then further probe these effects by introducing processing variables from the tenets of perceived risk (perceived health risk) and information processing confidence (skepticism toward the ad). We find that debunking information induces higher levels of skepticism among females owing to their lower information processing confidence than males, leading to downstream effects of higher perceptions of health risk, less favorable attitudes toward the brand, and lower purchase intentions among females than males. Our findings provide implications for advertisers and policymakers to battle the ongoing proliferation of fake ads.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Brand affiliation and the hotel asset market

Peng Liu, Julia Freybote, and Prashant Das

International Journal of Hospitality Management

Brand affiliation represents a signal about the future operating performance of a hotel that reduces information asymmetries between hotel buyers and sellers. However, information asymmetries vary across property-level and locational characteristics of hotels. We hypothesize that hotel brand affiliation as a signal is most valuable to investors when information asymmetries are higher due to hotel characteristics such as a lower-tier hotel class, suburban location, or poorer building condition. Using a sample of 23,323 hotel transactions from 1986 to 2021, we provide evidence that branded hotels with characteristics indicating higher information asymmetries achieve a higher transaction price and shorter marketing time than similar independent hotels. Transaction price and marketing time do not differ between branded and independent hotels with characteristics indicating lower information asymmetries.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Voting on auditor ratification by shareholder type: Impact of institutional shareholder dissent on NAS fees and audit quality

Siddharth Purohit, and Naman Desai

Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance

Institutional investors have a better understanding of corporate performance than non-institutional investors, and their presence tends to improve the overall governance mechanism of a company and discipline top management against taking self-serving or myopic decisions. In this study, we examine shareholder voting patterns on auditor reappointments in Indian companies and examine whether institutional shareholder dissent on auditor reappointment acts as a disciplining mechanism on subsequent auditor actions and leads to improvement in audit quality. Our results indicate that institutional shareholder dissent on auditor reappointment is positively related to relative magnitude of non-audit services (NAS) fees in the previous year. More importantly, we observe that auditors are sensitive to institutional dissent and respond by charging a lower amount of NAS fees and providing superior audit quality in the subsequent year to signal increased independence and objectivity. Similar results are not observed in the case of retail shareholders. Our findings reinforce the role of institutional shareholders as important monitors in the corporate governance process and call for regulation to mandate the participation of shareholders in the auditor appointment process.

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Journal Articles | 2023

A market value analysis of buyer–supplier relationship building awards

Nishant Kumar Verma, Ashish Kumar Jha, Indranil Bose, and Eric W. T. Ngai

IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management

Working Papers | 2023

Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) in India: A study using one-way ANOVA and multiple linear regression (MLR)

Rohan Kar and Sourav Bikash Borah

Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) is of grave concern for India and other low-income and middle-income countries aspiring to meet the Sustainability Development Goals by 2030 (SDG30). As per government estimates, the NMR in India was 30 per 1000 live births in 2019. Achieving the target of 12 deaths per 1000 live births by 2030 remains a considerable challenge. This study was conducted using indicators from the State Health Index Round 4 (SHI-R4), covering 34 states and union territories (N=34). One-way ANOVA was performed to identify significant differences in mean NMR, if any, between states and union territories (UTs). Later, a model was built using multiple linear regression techniques to predict the NMR in India using indicators available in the SHI-R4. The model obtained had an R 2 value of 0.37. Among the significant predictors that most influenced the NMR were the average occupancy of a district Chief Medical Officer (CMO), the number of caesarean sections performed at First Referral Units (FRUs), and the Kayakalp score of public health facilities. The study findings add to the existing scholarship on NMR in India. The results are significant both in terms of future research and policymaking decisions.

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Impactful data visualization : Hide and seek with graphs

Books | 2023

Impactful data visualization : Hide and seek with graphs

Kavitha Ranganathan

Penguin Random House

Working Papers | 2022

Stigma, Corporate Insolvency, and Law: International Practices and Lessons for India

M P Ram Mohan & Muskaan Wadhwa

Insolvency and bankruptcy have always attracted a measure of stigma. The negative attitude towards insolvency emerged due to the historically harsh treatment of bankrupts and the perception of bankruptcy as a breach of a sacred relationship between the debtor and creditor. Majority of the existing legal scholarship studying the bankruptcy stigma focuses on personal insolvencies, while its influence on corporate insolvencies has largely been neglected. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining the impact and manifestations of stigma in the context of corporate insolvency. The paper does so by contrasting the corporate insolvency schemes of the United States and the United Kingdom. It argues that while both jurisdictions prioritise the rehabilitation of corporate debtors, there is a divergence in the methodologies across the Atlantic due to the varied historical, cultural, and economic attitudes towards business failures. With this background, the paper explores bankruptcy stigma in the Indian context and shows how certain provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 seem to reinforce and perpetuate the stigma against incumbent management and promoters of corporate debtors. The paper argues that there is a need to ameliorate the stigma associated with corporate insolvency for the successful rescue and rehabilitation of distressed corporations and for promoting entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic growth in the country.

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IIMA