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3852 items in total found

Working Papers | 2010

Container Train Operators in India: Problems and Prospects

Rachna Gangwar and G. Raghuram

In India, railways are under the control of the government which is the sole provider of the infrastructure, operations and regulatory functions. Private participation, though very limited, was largely in the domain of infrastructure creation. In January 2006, in a landmark initiative to introduce competition in the container operations segment, the Ministry of Railways allowed the entry of private and public sector operators to obtain licences for running container trains on the Indian Railways (IR) network. Until then, the Container Corporation of India, a subsidiary of IR, was the monopoly operator of container trains in India. This initiative was the first significant move of its kind where private parties were allowed to make entry in the domain of railway operations with direct customer interfacing. The response to the policy was good and 15 new entrants obtained licences to run container trains. Due to lack of clarity or inconsistency in matters pertaining to haulage charges, maintenance of wagons, transit guarantees from IR and terminal access charges, operators started feeling skeptical about the viability of the business. This paper examines the current policy environment from the point of view of business viability for 15 new Container Train Operators and brings out issues related to licensing, pricing, terminals, maintenance, and service levels. Keywords: Indian Railways, Container Train Operators, Container Corporation of India, Policy Issues for Container Transport

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Working Papers | 2010

When index dissemination goes wrong: How fast can traders add and multiply?

Jayanth R. Varma

This paper studies an episode of dissemination of wrong stock index values in real time due to a software bug in the Indian Nifty index futures market on the morning of January 18, 2006. The episode provides an opportunity to test various models of cognitive biases and bounded rationality highlighted in behavioural finance. The paper provides strong evidence against cognitive biases like "anchoring and adjustment" (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974) that one might expect under such situations even though the cognitive task involved is quite simple. The futures market tracked the true Nifty index which it could not see while completely ignoring the wrong Nifty index that it could see. However, the paper demonstrates that market efficiency failed in more subtle ways. There is evidence of a partial breakdown of price discovery in the futures markets and a weakening of the bonds linking futures and cash markets. This evidence is consistent with the centrality of "market devices" as argued in "actor network theory" in economic sociology (Muniesa, Millo and Callon, 2007 and Preda, 2006). Well functioning markets today depend critically on a whole set of information and communication technologies. Any failures in these material, socio-technical aspects of markets can make markets quite fragile even if behavioural biases are largely absent.

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Working Papers | 2010

Discontinuity in the Environment, Firm Response and Dynamic Capabilities

M. R. Dixit and Bhaskar Bhowmick

This paper identifies and focuses on a specific type of environmental development called discontinuity. Discontinuities in the forms of rapid technological innovations, regulatory reforms, institutional overhauls, and socio-cultural developments are the source of opportunities and threats to the firm. Firm responds to these discontinuities in specific ways in sustaining its existence at different points of time. This paper conceptualizes discontinuity and identifies its natures; explores the possible types of responses by the firm, and their enablers. The capability of sensing, seizing and re-shaping are captured to establish the linkages in the framework of interrelations. It posits a set of propositions based on conceptual development and illustration of two cases.

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Working Papers | 2010

Lessons from PPPs of Indian Railways and Way Forward

G. Raghuram and Gangwar Rachna

The Indian Railways (IR) have grand plans. They would like to leapfrog to a higher growth trajectory during 2010-20. Towards this, they would like to see a total investment of Rs 14,00,000 crores (cr), as stated in the Vision 2020, brought out by the Ministry of Railways (MoR) in December 2009. With whatever level of optimistic projections for the internal resources and borrowings for the coming decade, clearly, PPPs would have to be a significant source. This makes it imperative for the IR to create a policy framework that would attract PPPs, especially in the context that the PPPs in IR have not taken off as projected. This paper reviews PPP projects that the IR has evolved over the past 25 years. These include operating partnership projects of IR including with the state government, PPPs in the pipeline, and discontinued partnership projects in IR. The paper brings out issues that have implications for PPPs in IR. The significant ones are focus on infrastructure creation PPPs rather than service PPPs, partner selection more contextually based than through open competitive bidding, more than acceptable time lags between conceptualization and project execution, issues in extending the project scope, non mutuality in contractual arrangements, and conflict of interest due to multiple roles of IR. Based on these issues, the paper derives certain key lessons and provides a way forward.

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Working Papers | 2010

An Eye for an Eye: Impact of Sequelization and Comparison in Advertisements on Consumer's Perception of Brands

Bibek Banerjee and Chakrabarty Patrali

In this paper we demonstrate that the positive effects of comparative advertising are significantly diluted when a compared-to brand retaliates. Retaliation introduces sequencing in advertisements. We therefore evaluate sequelized advertisements (both comparative and noncomparative) alongside comparative advertisements and ordinary advertisements. We show that, given no threat of comparative advertising from competitors, sequelizing a popular advertisement may be as potent as comparative advertising, in terms of improving consumers' recall as well as preference for the sponsored brand. Furthermore, an advertisement message may be directed at core benefits (and/or attributes) that a brand promises, or at a stylized theme or storyline that use peripheral cues to indirectly convey the brand's deliverables. We incorporate this dimension of communication focus and conclude that while comparative advertisements are more effective with objective messages, noncomparative sequelized advertisements work better with thematic or story based messages.

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Working Papers | 2010

Leveraging the Integration of Sales Career Cycle with Brand Life Cycle in Indian Pharmaceutical Firms

Basant Kumar Purohit

This working paper confines its scope to performance of National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS). It examines the progress of NAIS in India and in one selected state, Gujarat. The two dimensions considered are coverage over time and across the states. It is further disaggregated for different seasons. The performance was studied with respect to number of performance indicators, namely, farmers covered, area covered, sum insured, premium collected, subsidy to small farmers, claims made and farmers benefited. The state-wise performance gives the comparative picture of NAIS among the states. Detailed performance was studied for Gujarat. Again the progress was examined over time and among the districts. Though the data shows impressive growth over time it cannot be termed as satisfactory. The coverage of area as well as loanee farmers has been disappointing. The scheme has many flaws. The mandatory aspect has not been appreciated by farmers.

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Working Papers | 2010

Performance of NAIS

Gurdev Singh

This working paper confines its scope to performance of National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS). It examines the progress of NAIS in India and in one selected state, Gujarat. The two dimensions considered are coverage over time and across the states. It is further disaggregated for different seasons. The performance was studied with respect to number of performance indicators, namely, farmers covered, area covered, sum insured, premium collected, subsidy to small farmers, claims made and farmers benefited. The state-wise performance gives the comparative picture of NAIS among the states. Detailed performance was studied for Gujarat. Again the progress was examined over time and among the districts. Though the data shows impressive growth over time it cannot be termed as satisfactory. The coverage of area as well as loanee farmers has been disappointing. The scheme has many flaws. The mandatory aspect has not been appreciated by farmers.

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Working Papers | 2010

Crop Insurance in India

Gurdev Singh

This working paper discusses the dependence of Indian agriculture on uncertain rains. In addition the farmers experience other production risks as well as marketing risks related to different crop enterprises and for different agro-climatic regions and areas. It then argues on the need for crop insurance as an alternative to manage production risk. It then takes up the historical overview of crop insurance products and their performance. It is followed by the discussion on the currently available crop insurance products for specific crops and regions. It discusses at length the two important products, namely, National Agricultural Insurance Scheme and Weather Based Insurance Scheme. It also reflects on some deficiencies in these products.

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Working Papers | 2010

Executive Blogging: Indian Corporate Heads in the Blogosphere

Smeeta Mishra and Kannan Rajesh

This study analyzes the content, usability, interactivity and connectivity of Indian executive blogs. Results indicate that among the Indian CEOs and top executives who blog, most are associated with the Information Technology and Internet sectors. A content analysis of the blogs shows that popular blogging topics include industry outlook, technology trends and tips, current affairs and insights on the economy. Executives working with privately-held companies blog more about their personal lives and topics such as entrepreneurship, marketing and advertising, and entertainment than those with public companies. The blog posts of these executives are often in the nature of individual opinions. The executives also provide actionable tips on various topics and products on their blog. While the blogs score high in the interactivity category and do reasonably well in the usability category, most suffer from poor connectivity in terms of providing links to other blogs and websites in the blogroll. Indian executive bloggers need to break out of their isolation and get better exposure by improving connectivity.

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Working Papers | 2010

IIMA in HealthCare Management:
Abstract of Publications (2000-2010)

K. V. Ramani, Poonam Trivedi, and Imran Malek

The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), was established in 1961 as an autonomous institution by the Government of India in collaboration with the Government of Gujarat and Indian industry.

IIMA's involvement in the health sector started with the establishment of the Public Systems Group in 1975. In the initial period, our research focused on the management of primary healthcare services and family planning. We expanded our research activities to include the management of secondary healthcare services in the 80s and to tertiary healthcare services in the 90s. Currently our research interests focus on the governance and management issues in the areas on Rural Health, Urban Health, Public Health and Hospital Management.

In June 2004, IIMA Board approved the setting up of a Centre for Management Health Services (CMHS) in recognition of IIMA's contributions to the health sector in the past and the felt need to strengthen the management of health sector in the context of socio-economic developments of our country. The overall objectives of CMHS are to address the managerial challenges in the delivery of health services to respond to the needs of different segments of our population efficiently and effectively, build institutions of excellence in the health sector, and influence health policies and wider environments. All our research projects are externally funded and we have developed research collaborations with 15-20 international universities in USA, UK, Europe, and Asia. CMHS has also established strong linkages with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare at the national and state government levels, particularly in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Orissa, and Bihar.

This working paper is a compilation of the abstracts of all our publications in the last 10 years, which include 40 referred journal articles, 54 Working Papers, 19 Chapters in Books and 18 Case Studies.

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IIMA