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Working Papers | 2010

Why Should 5000 Children Die in India Every Day? Major Causes and Managerial Challenges

K. V. Ramani, Dileep Mavalankar, Tapasvi Puwar, Joshi Sanjay, Harish Kumar, and Imran Malek

Globally, more than 10 million children under 5 years of age, die every year (20 children per minute), most from preventable causes, and almost all in poor countries. Major causes of child death include neonatal disorders (death within 28 days of birth), diarrhea, pneumonia, and measles. Malnutrition accounts for almost 35 % of childhood diseases.

India alone accounts for almost 5000 child deaths under 5 years old (U5) every day. India.s child heath indicators are poor even compared with our Asian neighbors, namely Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Nepal and Bangladesh. Within India, the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh account for almost 60 % of all child deaths

India.s neonatal mortality, which accounts for almost 50 % of U5 deaths, is one of the highest in the world. India launched the Universal Immunization Program in 1985, but the status of full immunization in India has reached only 43.5 % by 2005-06. India started the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in 1975 to provide supplementary nutrition to children, but 50 % of our children are still malnourished; nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa. The WHO/UNICEF training program on Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses, known as IMNCI, started in India a few years ago, but the progress is very slow.

What is unfortunate is the fact that most of these deaths are preventable through proven interventions: preventive interventions and/or treatment interventions, but the management of childhood illnesses is very poor.

In this working paper, we bring out the nature and magnitude of child deaths in India (Chapter 1) and then share with you in Chapters 2, 3 and 4 our observations on the management of some of national programs of the government of India such as

The Universal Immunization Program (UIP)
The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)
The Integrated Management of Neonatal and Child Illnesses (IMNCI)

In the final chapter (Chapter 5), we highlight certain managerial challenges to satisfactorily address the child mortality and morbidity in our country.

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Working Papers | 2010

Organization Development Experiences . A Case for Enriching HRD through OD

T. V. Rao

This article reviews a few definitions of OD and identifies eight characters that are necessary to call an activity or experience as an OD activity or experience. The article then goes on to examine ten case studies (of research, consulting and OD) of what appears like an OD activity in which the author was involved as one of the facilitators for whole system or subsystem and examines each on of them for their appropriateness to be called as OD interventions. The author then goes on to derive some lessons from these experiences. The article outlines also some advantages of using traditional OD approach in various HRD interventions and offers some suggestions for making specific HRD interventions like competency mapping, 360Degree Feedback based leadership Development and Assessment and Development Centers as OD activities. The paper concludes that using an OD approach enriches HRD and yields a good ROI on HRD interventions.

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Working Papers | 2009

The Dynamic Relationship between Price and Trading Volume:Evidence from Indian Stock Market

Brajesh Kumar, Priyanka Singh, and Ajay Pandey

This study investigates the nature of relationship between price and trading volume for 50 Indian stocks. Firstly the contemporaneous and asymmetric relation between price and volume are examined. Then we examine the dynamic relation between returns and volume using VAR, Granger causality, variance decomposition (VD) and impulse response function (IRF). Mixture of Distributions Hypothesis (MDH), which tests the GARCH vs. Volume effect, is also studied between the conditional volatility and volume. The results show that there is positive and asymmetric relation between volume and price changes. Further the results of VAR and Granger causality show that there is a bi-directional relation between volume and returns. However, the results of VD imply weak dynamic relation between returns and volume which becomes more evident from the plots of IRF. On MDH, our results are mixed, neither entirely rejecting the MDH nor giving it an unconditional support.

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Working Papers | 2009

Strategic Orientation of Outsourcing Firms:Demystifying Key Differentiators

Kirti Sharda

Despite the importance of outsourcing firms and the highly competitive nature of the outsourcing industry, there has been minimal examination of outsourcing firm strategy. This paper investigates the strategic focus of 60 outsourcing firms using empirical data collected through survey and semi-structured interviews from 226 top management team respondents. Factor and cluster analysis reveal three outsourcing firm archetypes based on their strategic orientation, namely, superachievers, quality advocates and defenders. The dominance of these archetypes also varies across business activities offered by sample firms. By delineating dimensions underlying outsourcing form strategy and by identifying archetypes of strategic orientation, the paper provides an understanding of key differentiators of outsourcing firm performance.

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Working Papers | 2009

Configurations of Business Process Outsourcing Firms and Organizational Performance

Kirti Sharda and Chatterjee Leena

There is an increasing recognition of outsourcing firms as new organizational forms with unique systems and practices. This paper uses a configurational approach to integrate learnings from outsourcing literature, organization and management theory, strategic management and strategic human resource management in order to understand similarities and differences between outsourcing firms and their performance. It formulates a conceptual framework that proposes that certain combinations of work designs, strategic orientations, client relationships and contexts could lead to better organizational performance within a sample of outsourcing firms.

The paper uses principal components factor analysis, Ward.s minimum variance method, K-means cluster analysis, and chi-square to analyze data collected from 60 outsourcing firms across India. Five dominant configurations of outsourcing firms emerge, namely, clear-eyed strategists, adapting professionals, focalizing artisans, conservative controllers and overambitious associates. Further examination with Kruskal Wallis One-Way ANOVA and Tamhane.s T2 test indicates that specific configurations of outsourcing firms are indeed associated with better performance across a variety of organizational performance parameters.

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Working Papers | 2009

Feasibility and Sustainability Model for Identity Management

Rajanish Dass and Pal Sujoy

National Identity projects and providing such identification to citizens in various countries around the globe has captured attention of late. Although the perceived benefits are numerous, nonetheless the challenges and bottlenecks for a successful rollout are many. The objective of this paper is to put forward the drivers and inhibitors for adopting a common identity management system across various organizations and to suggest a model for determining the feasibility and sustainability of such a system. The paper develops on TAM for proposing a model for identifying the drivers and inhibitors of managing such an identity management exercise. This paper highlights various factors affecting successful implementation of an identity management system and investigates the impact of these factors. The model suggested in this paper would allow organizations and policy makers to determine the critical factors for the implementation of an identity management system in large scale.

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Working Papers | 2009

Point of Purchase Communication: Role of Information Search, Store Benefit and Shopping Involvement

Dwarika Prasad Uniyal and Piyush Kumar Sinha

Point of Purchase (PoP) is the place where a customer is about to buy the product. This is the crucial point where the exchange takes place. It offers us a last chance to remind or attract customers. In spite of a considerable expenditure on point of purchase material by companies, there is a lack of an established method of measuring the effectiveness of communication at the retail outlet. The current study is an attempt to define and measure the extent of usage of PoP by consumers while shopping. It explores the phenomenon with the help of an experimentation using two main variables; level of information search and store benefits sought. It uses shopping involvement as a mediating variable.

During the course of study scales for usage of PoP communication and shopping involvement were developed. In-depth interviews were carried among shoppers to understand their motivations and gratifications with regard to shopping. The interview findings were used to develop scales, which were tested before being used during the experiment. The experiments involved building scenarios specific to shopping situations. Participant observations were carried out at stores with different formats.

The study found that all the three variables were significant in terms of main as well as interaction effects. Based on the findings the authors suggest a framework for enhancing the effectiveness of PoP Communication.

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Working Papers | 2009

Indian Takeover Regulation - Under Reformed and Over Modified

Parekh Sandeep

The takeover of substantial number of shares, voting rights or control in a listed Indian company attracts the provision of SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations 1997. The regulations have been amended nearly 20 times since inception, though the amendments have mainly concentrated on areas which needed no amendment. At the same time a vast number of obvious problems have not been rectified in the regulations. The large number of amendments have also created requirement of a compulsory tender offer of such unnecessary complexity as to make it virtually unintelligible to even a well qualified professional.

This paper argues that the complexity in the trigger points for disclosure and tender offer introduced over the years lacks a philosophy, and most of the amendments can not only be deleted but a very simple structure can be introduced making compliance of the regulations straight forward and easy to understand by management of listed companies. Certain other areas which need amendments have also been discussed. Chief amongst these are the provisions relating to consolidation of holdings, conditional tender offers, hostility to hostile acquisitions, definitional oddities, payment of control premium in the guise of non compete fees, treatment of differential voting rights, treatment of Global Depository Receipts and disclosure enhancements.

This paper does not try to portray a particular combination of numbers as the best possible set of trigger points and compulsory acquisition numbers but advocates that whatever numbers are adopted should not be changed for several decades. Arguments that state that the changing economic condition requires constant changes with these numbers, it is argued is wrong.

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Working Papers | 2009

The Path to Purchase during Shopping

Piyush Kumar Sinha and Krishnaswamy Gopi

Increasingly shopping behaviour is being seen from the holistic perspective of the entire shopping experience. The experiential view of shopping takes a far more holistic approach to the consumption process, right from involvement to post purchase usage. The decision making process and value perceptions could vary depending on individual shopping orientations, the cultural orientations as well as the economic and competitive environment in which the consumer shops (Woodruffe, Eccles and Elliott, 2002). This study will attempt to understand the impact of the major factors on the purchase behaviour of shoppers by examining purchase paths across different product categories signifying different shopping orientations; across culturally distinct regions; and across different stages of retail evolution.

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Working Papers | 2009

Environmental Control in Greenhouse and Animal Houses with Earth-Tube-Heat-Exchangers in Hot Semi-arid North-West India

Girja Sharan and T. Madhavan

A program was initiated in 1998 to develop technology to improve water and land productivity in Kutch, a vast semi-arid and hot region in north-west India. Greenhouse cultivation was identified as basic approach. A new experimental facility was designed consisting of a greenhouse coupled to ETHE in closed.loop with added provisions for shading, natural ventilation and supplementary evaporative cooling via the foggers.

ETHE was placed in a trench 20 m long, 6 m wide and 3 m deep and back-filled with excavated soil. The greenhouse, a single span saw-tooth (20 X 6 X 3.5 m) structure was erected directly above. ETHE provided 40 air changes per hour. There are three continuous (closable) vents - two laterals along base of long sides, one near top of taller wall. A retractable cover with 60 % shading was provided on top over the cladding. There are 39 overhead foggers placed overhead. The facility was installed in late 2001, at Kothara (j 23° 14 N, l 68° 45 E) and investigations carried out to determine (a) the extent to which new facility improves yields, extends cropping season, conserves water compared to open- field in the area, and (b) the extent to which environmental control is achieved.

By using control measures in sequence and in conjunction, it was possible to crop the greenhouse over a span of ten months (July to April), long enough to raise two crops. Hybrid tomato has been raised three times, with mean single crop yield of 62 t / ha, and crop water use 245 mm. Additional 50 mm water was used in supplementary cooling. Yield was nearly two times that of open-fields and water used (for irrigation and cooling) less than half. Natural ventilation along with top shading was effective till the end of February, limiting greenhouse temperature to 34°C. Subsequently, ETHE and foggers were operated. With adult tomato crop inside (4 plants / m2), operating the ETHE (vents closed, top shaded) for six hours with evaporative supplement from foggers restricted greenhouse temperature to 37 . 38°C.

Water used by foggers, 100-108 liters over the day was one third to one fifth of what fan and pad would need to service a facility of this size. ETHE used 20-24 kWh over a day, about 25% more than estimated for fan and pad system. It was found economical to crop till the end of April or fist week of May and keep the house closed till the end of June. In heating mode - ETHE was able to heat the greenhouse easily from 9°C to 22-23°C in half hour in the cold winter nights and keep it at that till morning. The new facility appears promising for improving yields, making better use of water and extending the growing season in this hot semi-arid region. Work is ongoing, to find ways to reduce installation cost of the ETHE and to develop a more easily scalable design than the present one.

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