Paradigm: A Management Research Journal

Trends such as a changing workforce with greater diversity, a shrinking leadership pipeline, increased globalization, and rapid technological advances are driving organizations to take proactive steps for career development and talent management. To accelerate the development of leaders, organizations must carefully select development methods and invest development dollars wisely. In fact, senior executives are continuing to push for more accountability with human resource expenditures given the rising costs of these solutions and the intensive competition for the budgets associated with them. To that end, many best-practice organizations have developed balanced evaluation criteria, up to and including return on investment, to gauge the effectiveness of leadership development programs. This case study shows how the ROI process was used to evaluate the impact of a career development initiative implemented as a pilot talent management strategy for increased efficiency in a dynamic manufacturing environment. Results showed a positive link between participants’ on-the-job application of learned skills/knowledge and desired business results. Findings from this study support research showing that successful career development efforts must be implemented with a systems view that occurs in the context of ongoing, real-time work initiatives that are closely tied to strategic business goals. Critical success factors that have implications for HR professionals seeking to develop value-added career development solutions include: beginning with a thorough needs assessment; securing support and involvement from senior management; linking efforts to strategic objectives; integrating continuous evaluation processes; involving line managers in programme design; and piloting the programme before launch.

Trends such as a changing workforce with greater diversity, a shrinking leadership pipeline, increased globalization, and rapid technological advances are driving organizations to take proactive steps for career development and talent management. To accelerate the development of leaders, organizations must carefully select development methods and invest development dollars wisely. In fact, senior executives are continuing to push for more accountability with human resource expenditures given the rising costs of these solutions and the intensive competition for the budgets associated with them. To that end, many best-practice organizations have developed balanced evaluation criteria, up to and including return on investment, to gauge the effectiveness of leadership development programs. This case study shows how the ROI process was used to evaluate the impact of a career development initiative implemented as a pilot talent management strategy for increased efficiency in a dynamic manufacturing environment. Results showed a positive link between participants’ on-the-job application of learned skills/knowledge and desired business results. Findings from this study support research showing that successful career development efforts must be implemented with a systems view that occurs in the context of ongoing, real-time work initiatives that are closely tied to strategic business goals. Critical success factors that have implications for HR professionals seeking to develop value-added career development solutions include: beginning with a thorough needs assessment; securing support and involvement from senior management; linking efforts to strategic objectives; integrating continuous evaluation processes; involving line managers in programme design; and piloting the programme before launch.

Gender roles today are in a state of transition. The different roles being performed by husband and wife in Indian families are no longer confined to the traditional way of thinking. With changes taking place in the status of women through education, employment, etc., the attitude and perception of husbands and wives towards gender roles is getting transformed. These changes in gender role perception are impacting the dynamics of decision making for purchase in Indian families.

This paper analyses the effect of sex role egalitarianism of husband and wife on the relative spousal influence across different stages of the decision-making process for buying different categories of products and services. The study was conducted using the survey method. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire from a sample of 400 couples. The findings of the study clearly show that the presence of egalitarian beliefs in the husband or wife increases the influence of the wife in family purchase decisions and vice versa.

Economic reforms have affected all sectors of Indian economy. Before reforms, the pace of economic growth was slow and the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) was imperceptibly above the population growth rate. After reforms, Indian economy has transformed relatively from stagnation to a dynamic stage due to growth in primary, secondary, and tertiary or service sectors. However, pattern of growth in agriculture, industry, and service sectors along with developments in the reforms and liberalization process shows that growth in agriculture sector has not increased substantially though other sectors, particularly service sector demonstrate the boost. Therefore, the objective of the paper is to examine the nature of growth and direction of different sectors namely agriculture, industry, and service sectors in India using growth models. Results indicate that contribution of agriculture sector in GDP is declining whereas the share of service sector is increasing. Further, analysis shows that contribution of industrial sector (in terms of share) in GDP seems approaching towards stagnation.

This paper provides on empirical evidence about the determinants of profitability of selected companies in drugs and pharmaceutical industry in Indio. It is based on a sample of fifty firms in drugs and pharmaceutical industry drawn from PROWESS database developed by CMIE. It covers a period of ten years from 1995-6 to 2004-5. The profitability of firms has been measured in terms of overage return on capital employed. In order to study the determinants of profitability, ten explanatory variables, i.e., size (total assets), post profitability (OPR, NPR), age, advertising intensity, retention ratio, liquidity, efficiency ratios (inventory turnover ratio, debtor turnover ratio, asset turnover ratio), long term finance, market shore, and research and development intensity were chosen for empirical investigation. Multiple regression analysis was used to develop a model to identify the determinants of profitability of firms in this industry. The results revealed that age, efficiency ratio, post profitability, and research and development intensity ore statistically significant in determining the profitability of firms in drugs and pharmaceutical industry.

Efficient Market Theory, pioneered by Eugene Fama, attracted researchers for analysis of market efficiency in developing market of India. Mishra (2005) considered the bonus issue announcement as the information which can affect the efficiency of the market and challenge the Efficient Market Theory. The effect of the information of bonus issue announcement is found to be positive on the market. The reason why it is so has been explained by many different hypotheses like signalling hypothesis (Foster and Vickrey 1978), cash distribution hypothesis (Ghosh and Woolridge 1988), liquidity hypothesis (Lakonishok and Lev 1987), and attention-getting hypothesis (Doran and Nachtmann 1988). This paper examines the effect of bonus announcements and the record date of bonus issue on the efficiency of the Indian stock market. Hypothesis test for the difference between the means of two samples method is used. Findings support the semi-strong form of market efficiency in case of most of the stocks. However, evidence of insider trading was observed in the sample companies that do not show efficiency. In case of record date the market is found to be efficient. A further analysis of bonus announcement effect on liquidity and effect of announcement with future record date uncovers evidences of inefficacy. In case-to-case company-specific market data analysis insider trading is evident.

The Cod bury committee report (1992) placed the corporate board at the centre stage of the governance system that it described as one by which companies are directed and governed. A major port of the debate on corporate governance centres around board composition especially board size and independence. Corporate governance reforms in the US and the UK hove focused on making the board independent of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and hence on independent directors. The Cadbury Committee (1992), the Greenbury Committee (1995), the Hampel Committee (1998), the Higgs Committee (2003), etc. have mandated independent directors on the board. Guidelines have been issued in India on the composition of the board of directors that are on similar lines as those given abroad, mandating the appointment of a certain percentage of independent directors. The SEBI Guidelines on Corporate Governance based on the report of the Kumar Mangalam Birla Committee and recommendations of subsequent committees, namely, the Naresh Chandra Committee, the N.R. Narayana Murthy Committee, and very recently, the J.J. Irani Committee have given a mandate for independent directors.

Literature finds that smaller boards are more efficient than larger ones. A larger board impairs the performance of the firm. This paper documents the changing profile of the boards of Indian companies in the light of the guidelines on board composition which have been given by various statutory bodies and committees.

The temporal relation between stock index and index futures has been an area of interest to academicians, regulators, and practitioners alike as it gives an idea about the efficiency of the market, its volatility, and arbitrage opportunities, if any. The issue of price discovery on futures and spot markets and the lead-lag relationship are topics of interest to traders, financial economists, and analysts. Although futures and spot markets react to the same information, the major question is which market reacts first. This paper examines the lead-log relationship between futures and spot markets in India. For both available stock index futures contracts, i.e., NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex of National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) respectively, we employ a Bivariate GARCH model to explain price discovery of futures market over the period from July 2000 to March 2007. Empirical results confirm that futures market plays a price discovery role, implying that futures prices contain useful information about spot prices (in line with similar findings in the literature). We evidence a bidirectional lead-lag relationship between spot and futures prices in both the stock indices and this is relatively stronger in NSE Nifty than in BSE Sensex. Futures markets are more informationally efficient than underlying stock markets in India during the period 2001-7. These findings are helpful to financial managers and traders dealing with Indian stock index futures.

It is commonly remarked that world markets catch cold when the US market sneezes. In this context what happened in the year 2000 has been well recorded in the chronicles of stock exchanges. Steep fall in NASDAQ resulted in impacting Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex as well as most South-East Asian Markets. The phenomenon of global stock market contagion is now familiar and has become more pronounced in recent years apparently because of the rapid global economic integration. This paper reports a study to find out if there is a correlation between Indian and Global stock markets and to further find out which market affects the Indian market maximum. In the context of the study, the paper examines the emerging concept of decoupling theory, which believes that because of strong GDP growth of countries as China and India, the stock markets of these countries will remain bullish even when there is recession in the US. The study presents an overall picture that although there is no perfect correlation, stock indices of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, London, NASDAQ and Brazil had more impact on Indian index.

The apparel sector is one of Indio’s oldest and most important economic sectors. It is the only industry which is self-reliant and complete in value chain, that is, from row material to the highest valueadded product-apparel. The growth and development of this industry has a significant bearing on the overall development of the Indian economy. Till dote, Multi-fibre Arrangement (MFA) governed the world trade in apparel but apparel trade is likely to change base after Multi-fibre Arrangement (MFA) phase-out. The exact impact of MFA phase-out will be visible after a considerable time period. Industry experts say the main losers are going to be the companies in developing countries, which have built up market shore due to holding quota or having quota-free access. This paper discusses the challenges before the Indian apparel export industry in view of Multi-fibre Arrangement (MFA) phase-out. It also suggests some important steps to be token, which would help apparel exporters garner a larger shore in the world trade of apparel in the post-MFA phase-out period.

In the wake of increasing competitive environment, supply chain management (SCM) practices have been adopted by organizations the world over to improve their operational performance and profits. But the results have been mixed. While in some cases effective implementation of SCM practices led to improvement in performance matrices, in others positive results could not be achieved. This research is intended to study the impact of implementing supply chain management practices on competitive potential of Indian automobile industry as this industry has taken the lead in adopting SCM practices in Indio. From the research, it is found that three SCM practices, namely, customer service employee training, improving production processes, and maintaining central information database for supply chain hove positive correlation with the overall competitive potential. Moreover; two SCM practices, namely, customer service employee training and on-site suppliers supplying standardized ports con have significant positive relationship with cost saving and return on assets (ROA) factor of competitive potential. It is well known that quality is no more about quality of product only; quality of information, quality of material flow, and quality of relationships assume high importance in contemporary globally competitive environment where both product life cycle and manufacturing cycle time are reducing at a faster rate than ever before. This study also brings out some SCM practices that significantly affect quality of information, quality of material flow, and quality of relationships in the Indian automobile supply chains.

This study starts with an inter-organizational approach where relational elements are incorporated in the analysis of Supply Chain Management (SCM) of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This is in line with the study’s main intention of assessing the determinants or drivers for effective SCM of small businesses and their impact on the realization of competitive advantage. The findings suggest an interesting perspective on SCM and distribution channel functions among SMEs where elements of information sharing, cooperation, and integration are linked to competitive advantage. The correlation amongst the three independent variables of cooperation, information sharing, and integration with competitive advantage are all significant, depicting the relevance for SMEs to focus on these relational elements. The highest correlation is noted between information sharing and integration and this definitely makes sense as SMEs strive to integrate their functions that are moving towards the attainment of common goals. Thus, the more integrated the functions amongst supply chain and distribution partners, the more likely that information would be shared amongst them. However, it is interesting to note that the predictive ability of the relational elements of cooperation, information sharing, and integration on competitive advantage is not supported through the regression analysis. In other words, the existence of cooperation, information sharing, and integration amongst supply chain and distribution channel members do not necessarily predict that competitive advantage will be attained. There are perhaps other factors that should be considered besides relational elements that influence competitive advantage.